Ashley Fiolek/Being Deaf & riding...

...the beach boys wrote a song about this very subject....
...good vibrations.....

Obviously more in tune with the vibrations penetrating through the seat.

She can feel the vibrations, I'm sure it takes her longer to adjust to different bikes. But clearly she doesn't need to hear to shift

There are videos of her on youtube talking about how she is able to ride like she does. Its vibration and feel.

Have you ever raced motocross? How do you know when to shift down the starting straight? Are you able to discern your bike's sound from that of your competitors 15 yards out of the gate?

Sometimes knowing someone's behind you can be a detriment to your progress/performance/result.

i used to take a deaf kid racing he was 13 when he started it took him a little while to learn to shift when it stopped pulling and when he slowed down downshift until it pulled again, and that was on a 85 rm125 those things were just plain slow as shit and hard to ride no matter who you were , he throphied a couple times in 125 novice and he never said it was any harder than a guy with hearing

I had the opportunity to hang out and ride with her at ClubMX a few years back, I was amazed at how well she "carries herself", great personality and shreds on a dirtbike.

Thinking about it I don't think it would be such a big problem. Like someone above said probably takes some time to get used to a new bike and all. But you have vibrations and you feel when the bikes stops to pull and you need to shift up/down. In time you get to know your bike and you can just use that knowledge. Well atleast that is what I believe.

Have never thought about this before, I don't even know if I use my ears to know when to shift. Well I probably do unaware of it, so it's probably a mix of feeling/knowing the bike and hearing..

^this
Do you really need to hear your bike hit the rev limiter to know you hit the rev limiter? Or does your bike stop pulling hard?
My guess is that most of us shift based on the "pull feeling" or "acceleration feeling" of the bike..not as much by sound as you think.

Rocky Williams who tuned for Gaylon Mosier is deaf and tuned both the MAICO's and Kawasaki's and before that turned wrenches at DG jetted by vibrations.

I knew a blind guy who rode. once

You can feel it quit pulling. Shes a true 5%'er. Doing whatever it takes.
Gotta respect her riding talent and determination.. Shame to see her back away from the sport, but probably not much future in it other than maybe working for her sponsors in some kind of way promoting to kids with disabilties or something.

If she was a pro golfer or something........she'd have it made in the shade.

Now that's impressive

Ashely is awesome. Smoked a lot of boys on superminis in amateurs

Anybody ever drive a Manuel transmission with earbuds/headphones? it can be done

Cool vid.

I appreciate how people using sign language never say "uh" or "like".

You guys are talking about her shifting gears down straights and in between corners and general riding. That doesn't impress me a bit. What impresses me is how she is able to jump safely. She did a lot of racing on the 80 and 125. I always found myself a little in between gears on a 125 while approaching jump faces. In many circumstances making a decision to hold the gear I'm in or up shift without it falling off the pipe. The wrong decision can be a catastrophic endo, or jumping way short. I've never seen her endo and I haven't seen her jump many things short. I find that very impressive. I imagine she found the 250f amazingly easy to ride when she made the move.